Should I use Apify or build my own crawler?

It depends on what you’re optimizing for.

Use Apify if you want:

• Speed to market — get crawling running quickly
• Less maintenance — they handle infra, retries, scaling, proxies, browser automation
• Prototype/MVP work — validate the data you need before investing heavily
• Irregular or moderate crawling needs — especially if you don’t want a full scraping platform
• Non-core crawling — if crawling is just one input to your product, not the product itself

Build your own crawler if you need:

• Full control over crawling behavior, data model, scheduling, and error handling
• Lower unit cost at scale — if you expect very high volume and stable patterns
• Deep integration with internal systems, queues, databases, observability, and compliance workflows
• Custom anti-bot strategies or very specific site logic
• Long-term differentiation — if crawling itself is a core competency

A practical rule of thumb

• If you’re still figuring out the problem, start with Apify
• If crawling is central to your business and you already know the target sites/workflows, consider building your own
• If you’re in between, do a hybrid: use Apify now, design your own crawler architecture later if volume or complexity grows

Consider these tradeoffs

• Apify pros: fast, managed, flexible, easier to hire for
• Apify cons: recurring cost, platform dependency, less control, possible limits on unusual needs
• Own crawler pros: tailored, potentially cheaper at scale, full ownership
• Own crawler cons: engineering time, maintenance burden, proxy/blocking headaches, ongoing ops

My recommendation

If you’re asking this because you’re early-stage or unsure, use Apify first.
If you already know you’ll need millions of pages/month or highly specialized behavior, build your own.

If you want, I can give you a decision matrix based on your volume, budget, team size, and target sites.